You can now customize the layout of FF pages! The controls for arranging a block appear when hovering over its header:



Your Homepage is especially flexible. Blocks can be moved, removed, and added. You can even have multiple block instances, allowing you to do things like have two calendars with different filters applied.

To add a block to your homepage, go to its native page (e.g., the 'Positions' block is native to the Trades page) and click the copy-to-home icon:



Now that you have so much control over your pages, make sure you're familiar with the 'Default Page' link in the footer – it resets the page back to the default arrangement and settings.



To learn more about how page arrangement works, please read the user guide. And keep in mind we're not done with this feature – we're working toward having all blocks addable to your Homepage, and allowing arrangement on all pages. If you have any suggestions, let us know!

We just got back from FXIC in New York City – it was a fantastic event! We met lots of colleagues and learned a ton from the excellent speakers. And we gave away 500 Forex Factory t-shirts!

Here's a shot of our ground crew cheesing in the exhibit room.



Thanks to the team at Shift Forex for the opportunity to sponsor the conference!

2014 marks ten years of operation for Forex Factory! Thank you to all the traders and advertisers who supported us through the decade – Forex Factory evolved from a tiny forum into an entire suite of products that over a million traders depend on, and it would not have been possible without your support and faith in us.

Huge t-shirt giveaway

We're giving away thousands of high-quality American Apparel t-shirts to celebrate our ten-year anniversary. Our aim is to give a free shirt (with free worldwide shipping!) to everyone who's positively contributed to Forex Factory.

Every Forex Factory member who has a MIRS ranking will automatically receive a free t-shirt. If you're one of the 1,900 ranked members, within the next few days you'll see a block at the top of your profile where you can order your shirt:



We're also taking requests from any member who's made a positive contribution to Forex Factory – if you're one of them, let us know!

Customers and industry colleagues: we'll be sending out a bunch of t-shirts in the next few weeks, and our sponsorship of FXIC on June 20th includes giving t-shirts to all attendees (we hope to see you there!).

Looking back through the decade

Forex Factory has grown organically as both a company and website. It's been a slow evolution with steady growth, resulting in a fortified infrastructure that's built to last. While Forex Factory has been through many phases, and the path forward was sometimes windy, two things have been consistent throughout the years: constant improvement and a focus on providing high-quality information to traders.

2004 – Forex Factory launches as a trader-focused forex forum, utilizing stock vBulletin software and operated by volunteer moderators.

2005 – Rudimentary version of the Calendar product is launched with innovative features. It becomes so popular that traffic spills into the forums, snowballing them into a lively discussion area.

2006 – Forex Factory becomes a viable commercial business, opening a small office and making some key hires. Advertising revenues grow rapidly.

2007 – Daily crashes from traffic spikes are the norm, and hackers bring down the website for a week straight. Development team focuses on solidifying the website's foundation.

2008 – Website codebase and infrastructure are stabilized. More innovative features and functionality are added to the Calendar.

2009 – The Forex Factory Blog is started and the first version of the Market product is launched. Forex Factory becomes the most-trafficked forex-related website.

2010 – Forex Factory operations are centralized in new Tampa-based headquarters. Development begins on the Trade Explorer.

2011 – News product and search functionality are redesigned. Trade Explorer and Trades products are launched.

2012 – Forex Factory logo and frontend are redesigned. Advertising infrastructure is expanded and the Brokers product is launched.

2013 – Forum product is redesigned and member profiles are modernized. MIRS replaces vouching, and headquarters is expanded.

2014 – Forex Factory turns ten! Several exciting projects are under development...

When Forex Factory was started

Things were a little different when Forex Factory was started. Here's a few reminders of the world the website was born into...

Ten years ago Greenspan, Trichet, King, and Fukui were leading the central banks:



Five countries had a larger economy than China (now just one):



The housing bubble was starting to take shape:



And the Swiss Franc was a lot less valuable:



Firefox launched version 1.0:



Facebook was just started:



And a website called Forex Factory made an embarrassing debut:



Forex Factory's first decade has been quite the adventure! We're working hard to make sure the next one is just as successful, and we appreciate your continued support as we march forward. Here's to Forex Factory's next ten years!

About six years ago the vouching system was implemented to help identify credible members. The idea was that traders can find quality information faster when there's a visible indicator of the poster's credibility, and while it was never a perfect system, it saved traders countless hours by placing an icon next to the username of vouched members.

We still believe in the idea behind the vouching system, but it's clear that FF has outgrown it. Not only is the system built on hard-coded levels (e.g., 11 vouchers assigns top rank, 4 vouchers allows vouching for others), but it's becoming a weaker indicator of content quality as the membership grows.

Today we're happy to announce the vouching system's replacement – the Member Impact Ranking System (MIRS). The detailed ranking formula can be found in the user guide. The structure of MIRS has many advantages over the vouching system. It's simpler because it's based on existing subscription functionality, rather than relying on an additional user action (e.g., clicking a vouch button). It's more democratic because it allows almost all members to affect the rankings, instead of just those who have four vouchers. It's more scalable than vouching because the formula considers the current membership size, rather than hard-coded levels, and it's more adaptive because rank is decreased as a member's subscribers go inactive.

While MIRS and the vouching system rank members somewhat similarly, there were a few differences that stood out when we compared the two systems:

1. MIRS generally assigns higher rank to members with recent activity, whereas vouching wasn't sensitive to last activity date.
   
2. MIRS credits members who have positive Trade Explorer returns, whereas vouching rarely included non-posting members.
   
3. MIRS quickly ranks new members who post high-quality information, whereas vouching was slow to react due to the small population of "voters" (i.e., only those with four vouchers).

No system is without limitations, but after putting a lot of thought, research, and analysis into it, we're confident MIRS will not only make quality content easier to identify, but also raise the overall quality of information posted on FF. In the coming months we'll be monitoring the system closely, and will make adjustments as necessary. Please let us know if you have feedback!

We're happy to announce the launch of Members, a new page that allows you to easily find and discover Forex Factory members that interest you. It's part of our initiative to facilitate content discovery, and it furthers the goal in a big way!

The page includes membership statistics, a master feed of the latest member activity, and a configurable list of members. The list provides three primary tools for discovering members...

Settings:


Filter:


Sorting:


Once the functionality is mastered, you'll be able to quickly find members who share your approach to trading, discover members who post valuable content, or locate a trader to help you with a particular issue – and you'll likely find countless other uses!